


lost boys

by parkjinyoungs



Category: GOT7
Genre: M/M, Peter Pan AU, with a twist lmao
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-02
Updated: 2017-05-02
Packaged: 2018-10-26 15:18:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10789308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/parkjinyoungs/pseuds/parkjinyoungs
Summary: All this has happened before, but it will never happen again. This last time, it happened in South Korea. It happened on a quiet street in Jinhae. That corner house over there is the home of the Park family. And Mark Tuan chose this particular house because there was one person here who believed in him.





	lost boys

**Author's Note:**

> i've been working on this fic for so long that i kind of hate any name i give it so i literally refer to it as The Peter Pan AU lmao  
> obviously since this is based on the film(s) peter pan there are going to be some quotes that i use for the story!  
> lemme know if u enjoy it!!  
> tw = instance of verbal abuse, implication of domestic abuse/murder

“Take that, Captain Hook! You’ll never catch me alive!”

Wooden sword clashing against bedpost, Jinyoung leapt across his bedroom floor with youthful excitement, dodging and weaving the blade of the evil Captain as if he were the Boy Who Could Fly himself. Their battle had raged on for a good twenty minutes and Jinyoung was finally reaching the climactic end.

“I shall never walk the plank, you old codfish!” He shrieked at his imagined foe, blocking a jab and rolling across the carpet, almost hearing the roars of the other pirates in his ears. Any minute now, Jinyoung knows his friend and partner in crime will fly in and they will defeat Captain Hook together, just as they always have in his stories, and they will be the heroes of Neverland.

The bedroom door slammed open and Jinyoung dropped his sword to the ground, the image of the ship and the pirate slowly melting away to reality.

“Shut up, boy! I’m trying to watch TV downstairs and all I can hear is you banging around and shouting up here, be more considerate!”

Jinyoung flinched from his father’s thundering voice, making himself small and harmless to prevent the rage from intensifying. Usually he could become tiny enough that his father almost forgot he existed and would leave him alone, especially if his father was in an, arguably, tolerant mood. If intolerant, the belt came out and Jinyoung would be in for a long night.

With a hoarse grunt, his father slammed the door behind him with a mutter. “Stupid boy.”

No longer in the mood to play games, Jinyoung slumped onto his carpet, running his play sword across the fibres softly. Children’s games tended to irritate his father but none of them infuriated him more than the Neverland game. Jinyoung could recall the tirades in an instant.

_“The boy needs to grow up. He’s eleven years old already! He’s weak and lets all the kids beat him up in the yard and he cries and cries, well, let me show him a beating to cry about. And all he goes on about is fairies and flying and a ticking crocodile. Absolute nonsense! Imaginary rubbish that needs to end now.”_

Except, it wasn’t. Not to Jinyoung. Neverland was the best place in the world, in the universe, to Jinyoung. There was not a place like it in the world. Tropical jungles filled with astounding and marvellous animals of all shapes and sizes, glistening blue lagoons where the mermaids sing and the pirates sail their ships, soaring mountain peaks and fields upon fields of flowers and not a cloud in the sky. It was a Heaven on Earth if one existed.

Jinyoung had heard his father tell his mother he needed to “grow up” several times recently as if it was a necessity; an inevitability to life, a requirement he had to fulfil. Jinyoung was too afraid to ask why; why he couldn’t stay young forever, why growing up meant losing everything that made him happy. Jinyoung didn’t want to grow up because growing up meant becoming his mother; a frail woman who sat in her pyjamas all day and cried as Jinyoung kissed her cuts and bruises. Or, God, even worse, growing up meant becoming his father and he would never let that happen.

The sky had darkened and Jinyoung had already made himself dinner earlier and, so, he decided to just go to sleep already. He couldn’t continue making noise and risk his father’s wrath, thus, he had no other option but to crawl under his sheets and squeeze his eyes shut to wish the next day here already.

In a panic, Jinyoung shot up from his bed and checked that his bedroom window was unlocked. Seeing the latch lifted up, he lay back against his pillows again with a relieved sigh of breath.

He had snatched the boy’s shadow last night; caught it rummaging in one of his drawers and stuffed it in a box. Jinyoung was hoping he would return for it tonight but he would not be able to get in if the window was locked, of course. Luckily, his parents would never check, either.

Clasping his hands close to his chest, he wished and wished to be taken away on the winds. To escape away into the night and to never return where he was not wanted, where he was not loved, where he did not belong. Was there such a place? A place where he could feel safe and important and never hurt again. In his dreams, it was Neverland, it was always Neverland. Sometimes, he wished he would never wake up again and stay there forever.

The breeze rattled the window and Jinyoung gradually drifted into slumber, hands still embraced against his chest.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

Whispers tugged Jinyoung out of his sleep, sluggishly wiping his eyes and yawning. His nightlight glowed across the room, allowing Jinyoung to see the boy at the end of his bed. Tearing out from under his sheets and across the room, Jinyoung flicked his overhead light on, much to the shock of the young boy in his room.

“No! I lost him!”

A shadow plastered itself against the opposite wall before wiggling its fingers roguishly and darting into Jinyoung’s closet. Jinyoung stared at the wall in a complete state of speechlessness for several seconds before landing his eyes upon the stranger still sitting on his bed.

“W-Who…Who are you?” Jinyoung tried to sound demanding but, really, his squeakiness gave his fear and surprise away immediately. The boy leapt from Jinyoung’s bed and landed opposite Jinyoung with a flourish, giving Jinyoung a chance to, at last, get a full look at him. Dressed all in green with brown boots and a funnily shaped hat with a red feather sticking out of it, Jinyoung had to say the boy looked quite peculiar and he couldn’t help but let out a slight giggle.

A thought struck Jinyoung and he gasped in delight. “Wait…you must be the Boy Who Could Fly!”

The boy stared wide eyed at Jinyoung as he slowly slid across the wall towards the closet. Jinyoung stepped towards him with an intense curiosity and he jolted with a fright.

“Well,” Jinyoung began with an excited grin, “I can’t just keep calling you the Boy Who Could Fly, you must have a name!”

The boy ruffled his messy red hair and puffed his chest out proudly. “My name is Mark.”

“Where do you live, Mark?” Jinyoung asked inquisitively and Mark swung around to point out of the window.

“Second star on the right and then straight on ‘til morning”

Jinyoung stared out of the window, eyebrows furrowed and chewing his bottom lip. “That’s…an address?”

However, Mark couldn’t answer as he became, once again, preoccupied with his shadow, tugging the mischievous silhouette out of the closet and trying with all his might to tie it around his ankle.

Jinyoung watched Mark struggle with the shadow in disbelief. “How did I catch your shadow? How is that even possible?”

Mark smacked the shadow with a toy car angrily. “Because he’s sneaky and likes running away.”

“But why is he even here? Or you?” Jinyoung continued to question, wondering if maybe this was actually a dream and he was still asleep.

Mark paused in his efforts with his shadow to smile up at Jinyoung. “He likes coming to listen to your stories. So do I”

Jinyoung looked at him dumbly. “But they’re all about you.”

“Of course! That’s why I like them!” Mark professed enthusiastically and it seemed like the shadow nodded in agreement before continuing to writhe in Mark’s grasp.

“That’s not going to work, silly. I’ll sew it on for you, just like when I have to fix my school uniform when it rips” Jinyoung proposed, jumping to his feet and heading to his bedside drawer. After a short search, he brandished a needle and thread and Mark gulped audibly.

“Don’t worry,” Jinyoung reassured as he sat down next to Mark on the ground and took the shadow from his hands, “it will only hurt a tiny bit and then it will be all fixed, I promise.”

Mark winced and flinched as Jinyoung reattached his runaway shadow but Jinyoung declared him brave enough and gave him a sticker just like the dentist does when Jinyoung doesn’t cry during his appointments.

Standing up, Mark flicked his shadow onto the wall and smirked in triumph, resting his hands on his hips. “Oh, the cleverness of me!”

Jinyoung rolled his eyes with a snort and placed the needle and thread back in his drawer.

“Now,” Mark announced, spinning back to face Jinyoung eagerly, “I’m actually here for more than just my shadow.”

Jinyoung sat back on his bed, head tilted sideways in interest. “And what’s that?”

Gliding across the carpet, feet barely touching the ground, Mark landed on his knees before Jinyoung with a playful grin. “You.”

“Me?! What would you want me for?” Jinyoung asked in wide-eyed surprise as Mark pulled him to his feet and dramatically gestured out the window.

“I have come to take you to Neverland with me! You can tell me stories and I will teach you how to fight and fly!”

“Neverland?! It’s real?!” Jinyoung exclaimed in astonishment, his heart taking off and soaring through the clouds. Mark stood in the windowsill, letting the wind blow through his hair.

“Of course it’s real! As real as you and me! I can show you the mermaids and the fairies and we can fly as high as the mountains and fight pirates and I’ll make sure you never cry again.”  

Jinyoung continued to stare at Mark in incredulity, almost waiting for Mark to disappear into thin air. “But... people cry all the time, Mark”

“Not as much as you,” Mark asserted and Jinyoung glanced down at his feet, away from Mark’s gaze, “sometimes I come to hear your stories and your stupid dad is shouting at you and making you cry and it’s not fair.”

“But he’s my dad…” Jinyoung began gently before Mark interrupted him with a harsh wave of his hand.

“He’s stupid and mean and makes you cry and I don’t like him. He told you I’m not real, I heard him, but here I am! He wants you to grow up but you don’t need to if you come with me. In Neverland, we never grow up! We stay children forever and we never become like him.”

Jinyoung fell silent; feeling the wave of an important decision wash over him. He never wanted to become his father; to have a wife who suffered because of him and a child who feared him. He never wanted a job he hated or bills to pay or, god forbid, go bald. He never wanted to grow up. Ever.

Mark’s eyes gleamed against the darkness of the night, like two shining stars, and he reached out his hand to Jinyoung. “Forget them, Jinyoung, forget them all. Come with me, we’ll never, _never,_ have to worry about grown up things again.”

A gust of air burst through the window, nearly knocking Jinyoung off his feet. “Never is an awfully long time.”

And then he beamed at the moon, grasping Mark’s hand tightly.

Standing atop the windowsill, Mark removed a small bag from his pocket and sprinkled the contents over Jinyoung’s head. “Now all you need to fly is some faith, trust and a little bit of pixie dust.”

Jinyoung giggled, scratching at his hair and watching the gold dustings cascade onto his shoulders and down his body. “Okay and now what?”

Suddenly, Mark leapt into the night air, shooting upwards and spinning in a circle before hovering above Jinyoung eagerly. “Just think happy thoughts and you lift right into the air!”

Jinyoung squeezed his eyes and tried with all his might to picture a happy moment in his life. Ignoring the bulk of terrible memories of his father, Jinyoung plucked out a memory of a day at the beach with his mother long ago. They had played in the sea and built sandcastles all day before buying enormous chocolate sundaes; sitting in the café and enjoying the cold treat as the sun set.

“You’re doing it! You’re doing it!” Mark called across the breeze and Jinyoung finally opened his eyes. His feet, no longer resting on the windowsill, were pointed down towards the far below ground as he floated mid-air.

Jinyoung shrieked with delight, wiggling his legs and gliding over to the other young boy. “I’m flying, Mark, I’m flying!”

And they took off into the night, towards the stars, hand in hand across the sky.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

They did all that Mark promised and more.

Flew over Neverpeak Mountain and bounced amongst the fluffy clouds, swam in Mermaids’ Lagoon and learnt how to sing the sweetest songs with the mermaids, danced with the fairies at Pixie Hollow, fought pirates at Skull Rock and The Black Castle and even stole the Jolly Roger from the horrible Captain Hook a few times.

Weeks must have passed, months even, and Jinyoung never once thought about his parents. He never dwelled on the tears of his mother or the shouts of his father. He had no need to; Mark occupied every second and his every thought. They ran towards each other on the shore of the Neverseas before collapsing into each other and lifting into the air.

One night, they slept on the fluffiest of all the clouds and watched the stars wink at them and Jinyoung asked why Mark had never grown up.

“Because grownups are no fun. You’ve seen them! They work all day and do weird things like drink coffee and iron their pants and… _kiss.”_ Mark finished in disgust.

Jinyoung giggled joyfully, rolling onto his front next to Mark. “You don’t like kisses?”

Mark grimaced, plucking a piece from the cloud and flicking it into the air. “No I don’t. Boys are supposed to kiss girls and I don’t like it.”

“Then kiss me instead,” Jinyoung suggested, glancing across at Mark lying next to him, “I’m not a girl so you can kiss me.”

Mark snorted, resting his hands behind his head and staring up at the sky. “That’s silly, Jinyoung, kissing is for grownups! And we’re not grown up, are we? Nothing and no one can ever make me grow up.”

“No… we’re not grown up…” Jinyoung murmured, dropping off to sleep under the watchful gaze of the stars.

It would be delightful to report that Jinyoung and Mark stayed in Neverland forever.

But then, there would be no story.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

They had just finished swimming in the lagoon and were scrambling across the rocks when Jinyoung felt an ache in the pit of his stomach. Almost like a call; a desperate call from home that he couldn’t ignore.

“Jinyoung! Why did you stop?” Mark shouted from a distance, scraping his name into the sand with a stick he had found.

Jinyoung attempted to ignore the call for the rest of the day but, as he sat across from Mark in their treehouse during dinner, he couldn’t help but bring the feeling up.

“I think… I think I need to go home, Mark. Just for a little bit”

Mark swiftly fell silent, staring down at his plate, barely without blinking.

“I’m… I’m worried about my mom,” Jinyoung continued on, “something… it feels like something is wrong.”

Still in silence, Mark slowly pushed his plate away and stood up before leaving the table without a word.

“Mark?” Jinyoung appealed anxiously, following the other boy into the sleeping area, “Hey, did you hear me?”

Mark dropped into a chair and picked up his panflute from the table next to him, playing a few notes. “Yes, I heard you.”

“Then say something!" Jinyoung burst out, pacing back and forth restlessly and gnawing at his fingernails.

“Why would you want to go home, Jinyoung?” Mark demanded, rising from his seat with a start and slamming the panflute down, “They make you sad and cry and want you to grow up! Why would you rather be there than here with me?”

Jinyoung sighed exasperatedly. “It’s not that I don’t want to be here with you, Mark, but I’m really worried something’s happened. Something bad.”

“Why do you have to spoil everything?!” Mark shouted, throwing his arms up in the air, “We have fun, don’t we? I taught you to fly and to fight. What more could there be?”

“There is so much more!” Jinyoung shouted back and he could hear the birds in the tree startling and flying away at the sound of their raised voices.

“What? What else is there?” Mark demanded, folding his arms like the child he was.

Jinyoung paused, watching his foot rub back and forth in the dirt. “I don’t know. I guess it becomes clearer when you grow up.”

Mark burst forward all of a sudden, gripping Jinyoung by the shoulders. “Well, I will not grow up! You cannot make me!”

“Why won’t you come with me? It’s not so horrible, I swear it” Jinyoung promised, wanting more than anything to go back to his old life with Mark by his side. He felt braver with Mark there; stronger, like he could take on the whole world.

Mark stalked away across the room, shaking his head profusely. “They'll make me go to school and then to an office and then, soon, I'd be a man! You can’t catch me and make me a man!”

On the other side of the room. Jinyoung had never felt more far away from Mark.

“I want always to be a boy and have fun” Mark finished with a certainty that Jinyoung could see right through the cracks of.

Jinyoung nodded in finality, heading towards the door before stopping for a moment.

“You say so, but I think it’s your biggest lie.”

Mark scoffed, turning his back on Jinyoung, shoulders raised and stiff in anger.

"Okay... goodby-" Jinyoung began before Mark yelled over him, silencing him before he could finish. Mark turned back to Jinyoung, an almost frenzied look in his eyes.

"Never say goodbye. Because goodbye means going away. And going away means forgetting." Mark professed and Jinyoung swore there were tears in his eyes but Mark spun away from Jinyoung, giving his back again before Jinyoung could tell.

“Mark,” Jinyoung called out softly, holding the door open with one hand, “you won’t forget me, will you?”

Mark’s shoulders slowly drooped as a huge exhale left his body. “Me? Forget? Never.”

“Will you ever visit me again?” Jinyoung asked fearfully, desperately wanting to know if this is the last time he’ll ever see the Boy Who Could Fly who flew him far away from his sorrow.

Mark tilted his face towards Jinyoung with a melancholic smile.

“To hear stories… about me.”

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Returning home, Jinyoung realised that the pit in his stomach had been right; so horrifically, woefully right.

Never had been an awfully long time.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

Checking through the mail, Jinyoung recognised a logo he had long got tired of seeing and exhaled heavily, ripping into the letter with a feeling of inevitability at what he would find.

_Dear Parent/Guardian of Soobin,_

_We are writing to inform you that Soobin has been involved in another incident in her classroom that resulted in injuries to another child and Soobin having to be moved to an isolation room. This is another confrontation in a string of incidents where Soobin has shown concerning levels of anger, therefore, we are proposing to refer her to the school’s child counsellor. It would be beneficial if you could attend a meeting with Soobin’s teacher as soon as possible and agree upon these arrangements._

_Yours faithful-_

Jinyoung slapped the letter onto the kitchen counter with a grumble before grabbing his car keys and heading out of the front door. School was finishing in half an hour and he could hopefully catch Soobin’s teacher after everyone had left to have a chat.

Arriving at the school, Jinyoung waited in the yard with the other parents for the children to leave the building. A bell rang and the doors burst open; girls and boys running, galloping, hurtling towards their parents with excited squeals to finally be free. Peeking over heads, Jinyoung spotted a young girl with long black hair in a plait frantically glancing around the parents before her eyes landed on Jinyoung.

“Daddy!”

Backpack swinging back and forth violently, Soobin ran into Jinyoung’s arms and he caught her with a laugh; lifting her up into his arms.

“Hi sweetie. We’ve got to go back into school so Daddy can talk to your teacher for a minute, okay?” Jinyoung checked and Soobin’s face immediately dropped, knowing already what was about to happen.

“I’m sorry, daddy, I did something bad.”

“I know you did, sweetie,” Jinyoung answered, calming his daughter with a kiss to her forehead, “but we’re gonna fix it and everything will be fine, I promise.”

A knock against the classroom door alerted the teacher to Jinyoung’s presence and she looked up with a welcoming smile and warm eyes.

“Ah, you must be Soobin’s father, do come in!” She greeted sincerely, beckoning the two of them into the room and directing them to a table they could sit at.

Jinyoung bent down on his knees to directly face his daughter. “Honey, you go find something to do whilst I talk to your teacher, okay?”

Soobin nodded reluctantly, glancing between Jinyoung and her teacher before trotting over to the bookcase.

Taking a seat at the table, Jinyoung ran his hands through his hair and scratched at his forehead, squeezing his eyes closed for a moment and sighing. The teacher watched him concernedly and poured him a glass of water from a nearby jug.

“I understand this is a very difficult situation to deal with, Mr Park, and doing this by yourself, I can imagine, is not an easy feat.”  

Jinyoung sighed again, taking a gulp of water and tapping his fingers restlessly against the table.

“Daeun walked out on us a year ago now and Soobin is still struggling I don’t… I don’t know what to do anymore. Of course she’s going to miss her mother but it’s affecting her school work and that’s the last thing I want so I… I think sending her to the counsellor will really help her. I’m hoping it will” Jinyoung admitted self-consciously to the teacher, aware that he didn’t want to spill all of his problems onto this innocent woman.

“And of course we here at the school want to see her improve and achieve as well,” the teacher agreed, taking notes in her diary, “as long as she is getting a stable home and school environment along with the counselling, we should definitely see improvement in the coming weeks. I don’t mean to pry, Mr Park, but… are things at home…?”

Jinyoung glanced over at his daughter, watching her eyes scan over a book she was reading. “Things at home are okay. I try to stay positive and not show her when I’m struggling but… the absence in the home is… obvious.”

The teacher closed her diary and nodded sympathetically; an emotion Jinyoung was getting really sick and tired of receiving from others. “I understand, Mr Park. Well, our child counsellor is not currently on site right now but we would like you to meet with him in two weeks for a progress meeting, if that’s alright with you?”

“That’s perfect with me, thank you” Jinyoung accepted the teacher’s handshake and card with a date and time for the progress meeting. He rose from his seat and called out to Soobin, who deposited her book back into the shelf and ran over to her father.

“Did everything go okay, daddy?” Soobin asked nervously as the two walked out of the school hand in hand. The wind had picked up with a vicious cold edge and Jinyoung tucked his daughter’s hand, entwined with his, into his coat pocket.

He nodded his head at Soobin. “Everything went really well, sweetheart. What’s gonna happen now is every few days you’re going to meet with a man who’s gonna help you and talk about things that are bothering you, okay? You can be a super trooper and do that for me, can’t you?”

“Yeah, I can do that, daddy” Soobin reassured him, squeezing his hand. Smiling down at her and feeling that intense overwhelming love that washed over him every time he remembered she’s his little girl, he squeezed back.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

“Soobin! Time for bed, come on, sunshine!”

The little girl scampered into the room from brushing her teeth in the bathroom, toothpaste drying in the corner of her mouth. Chuckling, Jinyoung scooped her up in his arms and scrubbed at her mouth, causing her to giggle profusely.

Lowering her into her bed, Jinyoung ruffled her naturally curly hair. “Okay, enough of your shenanigans now, missy.”

“Daddy, you have to tell me the story again before I go to sleep!” Soobin demanded, tucking herself under the covers with an excited anticipation.

“Okay, which story do you want?” Jinyoung inquired, lying down on the bed next to Soobin, propping his head up against the headboard to look down at her.

“You know the one, daddy! The one where you meet a boy who can fly and you go on amazing adventures together!”

Jinyoung snickered at how eager Soobin was for her bedtime story before remembering the one thing he wanted to check with her before the progress meeting he was attending the next day.

“Before that, honey, how are your meetings with the counsellor going? Is he nice and helpful?”

Soobin turned over onto her side, snuggling into her father’s chest and closing her eyes. “He’s very nice, daddy. You should meet him, he’s talked about you before.”

Jinyoung looked down at his daughter, eyebrows drawn in question as he gently rubbed his hand up and down her back, a soothing gesture he had been doing since she was a baby to help her sleep. “He’s talked about me?”

Soobin yawned, rubbing her cheek against Jinyoung’s chest and inhaling his scent, her body instantly relaxing as she drifted off. “Don’t worry, daddy… he said… he’s flown… a long way… to help us…”

“Flown?” Jinyoung repeated in confusion, looking down at Soobin who had already fallen into a deep sleep. Shrugging his shoulders and too exhausted to get up and move, Jinyoung switched the bedside lamp off and snuggled down into the bed with Soobin, slowly drifting into a sleep full of dreams he had never stopped having, even when he had returned home.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

“11am, did you say?”

Jinyoung nodded at the receptionist, handing over his appointment card before taking a seat in one of the squeaky plastic chairs in the waiting area. He was feeling apprehensive; he hadn’t received anymore letters of complaint from the school about Soobin’s behaviour but that didn’t necessarily mean whatever the counsellor was doing had had any sort of positive effect on her.

Jinyoung thought a year would’ve helped adjust Soobin to the disappearance of her mother, who had taken off without even saying goodbye to her, but it seemed that time was only making matters worse. Jinyoung could definitely agree that time did not heal all wounds. Glancing at the different posters on the walls, Jinyoung’s eyes made contact with a poster on domestic abuse before blinking severely and turning away.

“You can go in now” The receptionist called to him over the desk and Jinyoung rose from his seat, heading towards the brown wooden door with ‘SCHOOL COUNSELLOR’ in block lettering across the top. Knocking on the door, Jinyoung heard a shuffle of papers and a cough before a voice summoned him in.

Entering the room, Jinyoung closed the door behind him and faced the desk, freezing as the counsellor rose from his chair.

“Jinyoung.”

His voice was deeper, so much deeper, that it shuddered Jinyoung out of his head and this couldn’t be happening, how is this happening, there had to be some sort of explanation. “You… how… I…”

“This is… a lot, maybe you should… sit down, you’ve gone white” Mark suggested, chuckling tensely as he pulled out the chair in front of his desk and gesturing.

Jinyoung uneasily lowered himself into the chair, unable to pull his eyes away from Mark for one second. He had to be dreaming, perhaps hallucinating. Maybe he’d hit his head on the way to the school and was laying on the pavement unconscious somewhere. Any of these options would make more sense than what was happening right now.

“How…oh my god…” Jinyoung began but couldn’t find the words, dropping his head into his lap and pressing his eyes closed, feeling lightheaded. Mark stayed silent, waiting in his seat for Jinyoung to compose himself. Behind his eyes, Jinyoung could see everything in a rush. The night Mark had visited him and taken him away, the clouds, the mountains, the lagoon, the hollow and the pirate ships. He even felt the wind whipping through his hair, could hear the tinkling voices of the mermaids and the yells of the pirates and Mark’s shrieking laugh next to him.

Whipping upright suddenly in his seat, Jinyoung had to look at Mark again, had to make sure this was real and happening. He was taller, much taller than when he was eleven, but not taller than Jinyoung; they were almost the same height. His fiery red hair was gone, replaced with a deep chocolate brown in a much tidier state than before. He had normal clothes on, something Jinyoung couldn’t properly digest; a tucked in white shirt and tie and smart shoes that even Jinyoung only wore on special occasions. He looked… grown up.

Jinyoung tried to word his feelings and questions that had sat in his heart for years. “How are you here this doesn’t… this can’t make sense! You… how are you even…”

Mark cleared his throat in the following silence, smoothing his tie down self-consciously. “The day you left, I… I followed you back to your house. I wanted to see you one last time before you grew up but when I got there, I saw… I saw what had happened”

Jinyoung’s stomach flipped and he had to drop his head in his lap again, fighting the urge within him to throw up.

Mark continued on, almost grinding his words out. “I saw… what your father had done… to himself and your mother and you… you were alone and I didn’t know what to do and then the police showed up and you were gone.”

He had tried to block out that night, purge it from his memory, erase every single second from when he had landed back in his bedroom to being placed in the back of a police car but everything was rushing back and Mark was… Mark was _here_.

“I tried to find you. I flew…I think I flew everywhere,” Mark choked out a laugh to ease the situation, “but you had practically disappeared. And I couldn’t go back after that. We both grew up that night, whether we had wanted to or not.”

Gradually, Jinyoung raised his head and looked at Mark, absorbing his face, his body, his presence, his _existence._ For a while, Jinyoung had convinced himself that he had conjured up Mark; invented him for story’s sake and acted the whole thing out, thinking it had lasted months when it had only lasted minutes. A sensible explanation for a nonsensical adventure.

“And now… you’re here” Jinyoung managed to say, unable to pull his eyes away from Mark as the situation sank in.

Mark stared back, eyes dark and gleaming just like the stars they had stared at in the clouds. “I grew up. Went to college. Thought I could… make kids feel like they belong, like there isn’t anything wrong with them, like they shouldn’t fear growing up. I could’ve used that.”

“Speaking of kids…” Mark continued, sorting through the papers on his desk, “you… have one.”

Jinyoung nodded with the first grin he could muster since entering the room. “Yeah, I do. Soobin. She’s… my everything. How is she doing? I just spend my days worrying about her, I need to know she’s doing alright”

“She’s made some small but noticeable improvements since our first meeting. She finds eye contact easier now, is more willing and open to share, doesn’t react with anger when prevented from doing something, all good signs going forward” Mark concluded from his notebook, glancing up at Jinyoung with a supportive smile.

Jinyoung let out a sigh of pure relief. “That’s… so good to hear. She has so much of her mother’s spirit in her but Daeun could never handle situations maturely… hence, why we’re in this situation.”

“She… walked out?” Mark inquired, checking his notes briefly before looking back up at Jinyoung. Jinyoung only answered with a nod, not feeling the need to delve into the ins and outs of why his marriage had fallen apart and why he didn’t even mourn its failing.

“Look, I…” Mark began hesitantly, running a shaky hand through his hair, “this may be a bit… forward but maybe… maybe you could come over mine tonight. I could cook and we could... I’ve missed you.”

Jinyoung felt his body stiffen for a moment at the sudden, blurted out confession before unwinding with a tentative nod.

“I’ll… I can get my grandmother to watch Soobin. I can… give you my number…” Jinyoung suggested, holding out his hand for Mark to give him his mobile.

Finishing the meeting, Jinyoung proceeded to the door to leave before stopping, turning back to Mark for a moment. Mark glanced up from his computer, raising his eyebrows at Jinyoung. Jinyoung tilted his head at the man, not the boy anymore, in front of him and smiled gently.

“I missed you too.”

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Pulling up in front of Mark’s house, Jinyoung inhaled a deep breath, checking his hair in the rear-view mirror and huffing into his hand to check his breath. Nervous was an understatement, more like absolutely terrified, but more than that, Jinyoung was overwhelmed with joy. Joy at Mark’s reappearance in his life, tinged with the obvious confusion, of course, but most definitely joy. The only true friend he had ever made, the angel who had lifted him up into the air away from his worries and taken him to a place he had never known since.

The years after he had come home had been rough and lonely with no light at the end of the tunnel. For months, Jinyoung had left the latch on the window in his room at his grandparents’ house up in the hope that, one day, Mark would come bursting in to take him away again. What he hadn’t known was that, instead, Mark was growing up just like him.

“Hey, come in! Take a seat on the sofa, I’ve just got to check the chicken in the oven” Mark greeted at the door, welcoming Jinyoung in and directing him to the large leather sofa in front of an impressive television with consoles Jinyoung had never had the opportunity to play.

“Would you like something to drink?” Mark called, peeking his head around the wall from the kitchen.

“Uh… just a glass of water would be nice, thanks” Jinyoung replied, relaxing back into the sofa and taking a look around the room. Not many photographs, Jinyoung could understand, but a lot of comic posters, film merchandise and a gorgeous record player with stacks of records to its side.

Mark reappeared, handing Jinyoung a glass of water and sitting next to him on the sofa. “Here you go. Hope you didn’t have too much trouble finding this place. This site has the trouble of all the houses basically looking the same.”

Jinyoung chuckled into his water, taking a gulp before placing it down on the table. “No, it was fine. I was actually wondering why you would’ve chosen to live somewhere like this? Much different to a treehouse, I’ll admit.”

Mark burst out into laughter and, much to Jinyoung’s surprise and delight, it was just as airy and high-pitched as it had been when they were children. “A treehouse, it definitely is not, yes. I’m not sure… normality, maybe?”

Jinyoung stared at Mark strangely and Mark laughed again.

“I know! How could I, the Boy Who Could Fly, want something as _dreadful_ as normality? I guess… my thinking changed. I just wanted… I wanted a home, someplace I could call my own.”

Jinyoung nodded, understanding that feeling more than most people. Even at his grandparents’ house, he hadn’t felt like he had belonged and, as soon as he had his own income, he set out to finally make a space for himself; a space that made him feel happy, safe and comfortable.

“Before we eat…,” Mark started, rising up from the sofa and heading over to an intricately carved wooden box on a shelf, “I want to show you something.”

Jinyoung watched with inquisitiveness as Mark procured a small fabric bag from the box and brought it back over to the sofa, holding it with such cautiousness and care that the need to know what was in the bag gnawed at Jinyoung.

Mark handed the bag over shyly. “I… kept some for you. In case I ever saw you again.”

Untying the bag and peeking inside, the contents shone back at him and Jinyoung’s heart nearly stopped.

“How have you managed to keep pixie dust this long?” Jinyoung questioned, voice high-strung and dazed, his eyes unable to pull away from the gold dust sparkling at him.

“I always kept some on me and… after that day… I knew I only had enough in there for one more flight. One more flight with you. So I kept it, in the hope that we would be here” Mark explained, eyes twinkling just like the pixie dust.

Holding out his hand, Mark beamed and, to Jinyoung, he looked just like the roguish little boy who had stolen him out of the window that night all those years ago. “Fly with me?”

Grinning back, Jinyoung placed his hand in Mark’s. “Oh, the cleverness of you.”

Standing in Mark’s back garden, Jinyoung watched the stars glitter before closing his eyes and letting Mark shake the remaining fairy dust over the two of them.

“You remember what to do?” Mark checked, gripping Jinyoung’s hand in his own. Light filled Jinyoung’s chest until he could feel it practically bursting out of him, pouring out into the night and filling the garden with brightness. The wind raged at them, flapping their clothes and throwing their hair across their faces.

“Think happy thoughts and they lift you into the air!” Jinyoung cried, leaping into the air and pulling Mark with him. It had been so long since he had experienced this feeling but being in the air, to Jinyoung, felt like coming home. Being in the air with Mark, flipping and spinning and diving, screaming with laughter until tears were streaming down his face, it was the only happiness he had known as a child.

Reeling Jinyoung in around the waist, Mark smiled at him as tears rolled down his cheeks. “I… I could’ve been young forever.”

Leaning in, he whispered into Jinyoung’s ear, as if he telling his biggest secret of all.

“But I choose growing old with you over everything.”

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

Jinyoung sat in his armchair facing the large bay window, looking out onto the garden that he had worked night and day on; sweat and mud and the most beautiful flowers. He sipped at his mug of tea lightly, not wanting to burn himself, and held his book in his lap, choosing instead to enjoy his view.

"Grandad! Look what I made!"

"I see you've been hard at work, Seojun" Jinyoung complimented fondly, pulling his grandson into his lap, groaning quietly at the pull in his back.

"I made a picture of all of us, see?" Seojun excitedly explained every single family member, even down to the dog and collection of ants he was keeping in the garden. Jinyoung held the picture, squinting playfully at it like a pretend art critic, before hugging Seojun tightly.

"It's beautiful, my boy, and it will go right in the middle on the fridge."

Huddled into Jinyoung's chest, Seojun reached across and pulled at the photo album that always sat on the side table next to Jinyoung's armchair.

"Show me all the pictures again, Grandad, tell me the story!"

With the most delicate movements and care, Jinyoung opened the photo album and beamed at the first pictures.

"This is your mommy when she was younger. A naughty little thing, always getting in the cupboards and trying to bake when we weren't looking. Nearly set the whole kitchen on fire, she did! So I know where you get your wicked side from, you little monkey" Jinyoung teased, tickling Seojun's waist and making him squeal with glee.

Turning the page, Seojun pointed his tiny index finger at a picture. "And that's you and Grandpapa, isn't it?"

Jinyoung stroked the picture softly, admiring it for a few moments. "Yes... that's me and your grandpapa. This is on our wedding day, 57 years ago"

"Tell me the story about Grandpapa, will you, Grandad?" Seojun asked, looking up at Jinyoung with wide, open eyes. He always loved the story, begging to hear it every time they opened the photo album.

Jinyoung cleared his throat and readjusted his glasses. "Well, a long, long time ago, when I was a little boy just like you, a boy came to visit me in the middle of the night. A boy who could fly. He took me away to a place called Neverland where there's mermaid and fairies and pirates and all sorts of wondrous things. That boy was your grandpapa."

Seojun stared at the picture in fascination before hugging Jinyoung tightly. "And is Grandpapa in Neverland now, Grandad?"

Jinyoung looked down at the picture of him and Mark, both in suits, smiling only at each other, bands glistening on their ring fingers. "Yes that's where he is now."

Seojun moved about on Jinyoung's lap and Jinyoung could sense he was getting upset. Hugging him close to his chest, Jinyoung whispered in his ear. "But you don't have to worry about Grandpapa. He's gone to the best place in the world. The happiest, most wonderful place. Where he can have fun all day and not worry about a thing."

"And he can fly all day long" Seojun mumbled happily and Jinyoung nodded against his head, taking his glasses off and wiping at his eyes.

"Grandad?" Seojun began, looking up at Jinyoung in awe, "did you fly with Grandpapa?"

"I used to" Jinyoung answered, stroking his finger across Mark's face in the picture slowly. He could close his eyes and still see his playful smile as he splashed water from the sink at him, hear his carefree laugh as they'd chase each other around the garden on a summer's day, feel his breath against his cheek as they would fall asleep together, wrapped up in each other's arms.

"And I will again someday. Someday soon."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
